


(Life is) Ours to Choose

by CodaAtTheEnd



Series: On The Origin of Egos [6]
Category: Video Blogging RPF, Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Dead People, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Madness, Mirrors, Post-Who Killed Markiplier?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24501526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodaAtTheEnd/pseuds/CodaAtTheEnd
Summary: Damien, Celine, and the Entity, a triptych.
Series: On The Origin of Egos [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1442656
Comments: 18
Kudos: 22





	(Life is) Ours to Choose

**Author's Note:**

> To Dark, the triumvirate eldritch abomination that tore our hearts out of our chests and devoured them with a fine red wine. I could never do you justice, but I hope I rendered your saga in all your shades of blue and red.

Celine's last thoughts as the Entity tears her soul from her body and burns through her flesh like flame through paper are of Damien. She has failed him in the worst possible way. She promised to protect him, to shelter him from harm as is her responsibility as the older sibling despite his protests that it's just by ten minutes. She was responsible for him, and she let him walk into this Manor knowing all the while that Mark and the Entity were _dangerous_. She knew he could be hurt, and she let him walk into that place without her. Sure, she came later, sure, she tried her best, but excuses mean nothing. He met a worse fate than she did. Instead of being reduced to ash and dust, his body was taken. Now her estranged husband walks the earth in Damien's skin, and they can only watch.

They drift in the Void, existing only as remnants of who (and what) they were before. Much of themselves are lost to the casual destruction of lives, loves and limbs. They are siblings. They will always be siblings. She is older. She will always be older. The rest of their life and times before the Manor is torn asunder. (They had no life before the Manor.) She loved the man she thought she knew. She will always love him, despite all his broken parts and wounded souls and bodies left in his wake. She left him for another man, a better man, a madman. She will always leave him, always tear apart his heart so carelessly, always forge him into the monster he became. (And here is the worst part: They do not remember forgetting the lives they had. They do not remember being anything but what they are now. They never knew anything else.)

His corpse lies there, a broken shell that taunts them with its uselessness. Even if they could inhabit it, the vast and varied wounds that run through its frame like fracture lines in a sheet of glass would cause constant agony and waste most of their power simply keeping it functional. Celine doesn't know how Mark managed to hold himself together long enough to have poker night, let alone enact an elaborate scheme to destroy the lives of all those who had "wronged" him, but then again, he had always been stubborn. Stubborn enough to never conceded in their verbal duels. Stubborn enough to turn his grief at their parting to hatred. Stubborn enough to see opportunity in what other people would call Hell. She hates and loves that part of him. She doesn't know what he'd be without it. 

They are alone together, waiting for an opportunity. The odds are against them, but if she nudges the pawns in just the right way, her plan will work. The District Attorney will die, but they will live. Damien will be alright. That's all she's ever wanted really. For her little brother to be _safe_. She's given up everything to make it so. But in the process, she's ruined him, tarnished his naïveté with the cursed knowledge she possesses. It's an unfortunate side effect of becoming a composite entity. He knows what she knows what it knows, and there is no separating the three of them, no matter how much she wants to protect him. His eyes are open now, and nothing will ever close them again.

But everything's fine. She can fix it. She can fill the cracks with a narrative, force the Entity behind the glass and trap it there, wrap her baby brother in a blanket of ignorance, keep everything as it was. The forest is cold, and any misstep means disaster. To keep themselves warm, they need firewood. Every day, he chops down a single tree. Every night, she goes out and searches for _him_. Every time he sleeps, he forgets. She doesn't sleep. If she did, the flimsy glass barrier that stands between her little brother and the Entity would shatter. Even with her nightly ministrations, the cracks in the mirror are widening. She does not know how long it will hold. The system's not perfect, but it's _working_. He's alright, and she's alright, and the Entity remains bound. Everything's _fine_.

Then her dear, sweet, _stupid_ little brother breaks routine.

He went out in the woods like always, he cut down a tree like always, and then... And _then_... 

At first, everything seems as it always is. He comes in, she tells him not to slam the door, he complains. They feed the ravenous fire more wood, more fuel, more past days she will never know again, and he sits, warms his hands, and opens his mouth. She knows, in that moment, that it's over.

"I saw a flower today," he says, and doesn't understand the magnitude of what he's just done. Of what he's just broken.

The world is falling to pieces around them, and she is so tired. 

* * *

Damien doesn't know anything about the world he's found himself in, a world achingly similar to his own but ever so slightly askew. In this world, this horrible, terrible place, Mark is dead, the Colonel doesn't care, Celine speaks of the occult like it's _real_ , and Damien is left reeling, wondering where it all went wrong. How could the four of them turn into this? They were so happy back then, just ordinary people, having a wonderful time. And yeah, sometimes they were assholes to each other, but they still loved each other. They were still as close as friends could be. 

He still doesn't know where it all fell apart, where Celine stopped loving Mark, where the sibling rivalry between Mark and the Colonel soured into resentment, where the poker nights became few and far between. All he knows is this: Somewhere along the line, Celine and Mark's relationship just... stopped. She stopped loving him, or he stopped loving her, or both, but she left him for the Colonel, who had always carried a torch for her. He does not know if their relationship was platonic, romantic, sexual, or some combination of the three, but she never came back. Mark stopped having poker nights, stopped seeing him or the Colonel altogether. Damien was saddened, of course, but he understood. 

And so it continued for years. Until that fateful day when Mark invited them over for one last poker night.

Now Celine is dragging the DA into a room for a sojourn into the Arcane Arts, and he's... worried. She's the older twin and can take care of herself, but he has the right to be concerned when he hasn't seen her in years and she's always been reckless. She's never listened to him when he tells her to be careful. Like that time when they were kids and their kite had gotten stuck in a tree and she _insisted_ on climbing it instead of getting an adult like he said and broke her arm. Never listens to him.

He just wants to help, but this world of murder and the occult is not one he understands. He can't do anything, and he can't stand it. When they finally finish their "scrying", he insists on staying with Celine. It may be childish, but he just wants to know that she's safe. Ironically, this is what kills him. 

Having the strands that bind your soul to your body _snapped_ like twigs is an... interesting experience. Painful and numbing in the same breath, like what Damien imagines being shot in the head feels like. Yes it hurts like nothing he's ever experienced in his life, but the pain ends as soon as it begins. The void embraces him as the person he thought was one of his dearest friends walks away in his body. At least Celine is there, even though it means she too was ripped from her flesh. At least he's not alone.

Celine has a plan to save them. It involves saving the DA from their untimely demise by forcing them back into their body and bringing the two of them along for the ride. He doesn't know what's going on really, but he trusts her. He trusts her, and she makes him a little narrative to hide in, one where everything repeats, day after day after day after day. Everything works until it doesn't. The walls are cracking, this little sanctuary Celine made is falling apart, and even now, she won't let him go. 

"Let me help you!" he yells, and that is the end. He's made his choice now, and nothing could ever make him take it back. He chooses to help, because he could never let Celine labor and strain and _shatter_ to maintain this place for broken things. He accepts it, the loss, the pain, the betrayal. Though he knows nothing, he has his sister. That's all he's ever needed, really. Just the two of them against the world. That's enough for him, and he can see the moment she accepts it too.

As the water rushes in, he holds her hand tight. He will protect her like she protected him for all the days/years/heartbeats they've been in this place. Together, they'll start to set things right. 

* * *

The Entity that is the Darkness that is the Madness that is the House can best be described as a corridor of mirrors. It reflects the wants and hopes and fears and dreams of the people within it, and they take on the traits it reflects and projects it back, and it reflects their new traits, and so it continues in an infinite spiral. If people are happy, it reflects happiness back at them, and they stay happy. If people are happy and never stop being happy, everything will be fine. But of course, no one stays happy forever. People hurt, people hate, people mourn, people get afflicted with seasonal depression in the dark, cold winter months. the Entity reflects that back at them, and unlike happiness, which cheapens with quantity, pain only gets worse when there's more of it. In a state like that, any emotion that diverges from the norm feels like your only emotion. In an ocean of sorrow, a spark of anger will be magnified until it consumes the water like gasoline. 

The Actor mourned, so the Entity mourned, so the Actor was overcome by despair. He wanted a way out, so he finally gave in. In the instant between him placing the gun against his temple and him actually pulling the trigger, he thought of the Seer. He loved her, and she left him alone. For the briefest of moments, he hated her. He fired the gun, but the Entity has no concept of death, so his soul flickered into the Other Place then returned to his body. He refused to accept it, choosing to take his life again and again and again, each time only further destroying his mangled corpse. Each time only magnifying the flicker of hatred he felt in that instant before death. Eventually, hatred was all he had left.

The Actor plotted, so the Entity plotted, and it plotted better than he did, but his thoughts reflected its thoughts reflected his thoughts, and so the scheme is a masterpiece of vengeance, born of grief and pain and artificial hatred magnified a thousandfold. Everything is perfect until the Seer arrives. The plan did not account for her. He rages, so it rages, and they change the plan to fit the pawns. Now, instead of stealing the Colonel's body, the Actor will claim the Mayor's. To properly get revenge on the Seer, it will rip her from her body. The Actor is somewhat more hesitant about this plan than the previous, but he accepts it readily enough, probably because of what will happen to the Seer. He was always one for dramatics, and even though he has no quarrel with the Mayor, the bitter irony of taking everything from the woman who took everything from him makes him grin. 

The mice are caught, the plan advances like a ticking clock, and everything escalates. The Actor acts quickly, and the Mayor falls to the ground. It mimics him in this as it has all things, cutting the strings that tie the Seer's soul to her body and slipping inside her flesh like an old coat not worn in some time. Achingly familiar, yet foreign in the same breath. Even though it remembers remembering this moment, it is still surprised when the flesh falls apart, spilling its power like a shattered mug. The corpse burns away, and the Entity burns with it. 

The Entity is a spiraling fractal, reaching everywhere at once. Though one fragment screams and burns and fades, the Entity sprawls across everything. It is a manor that does not obey the laws of reality, it is a book of ancient magics, it is a cabin in the frozen woods, it is a glass shard that cuts and takes and excises, it is a mirror that reflects everything you hate and love, it is a corpse that walks the earth seeking revenge. It is darkness, it is agony, it is madness, it is your reflection staring back at you. No, you are the reflection. It wears your life better than you ever could. 

Which is worse, in the end? The monster that hurts you because it wants to, or the monster that hurts you because someone else did it first? The monster that uses you as a tool for a plan, or the monster that made the plan in the first place? The monster that just wants the pain to go away, or the monster that just wants to help? The monster that was human once, or the monster that is as incomprehensible to you as you are to it? The monster who understands ethics and morals and guilt and does these things regardless, or the monster who has not felt these things and never will? The monster that thinks himself a hero, or the monster that never pretended to be anything but itself? 

Do we blame the killer for the acts he has wrought in a fit of madness? Do we blame the gun for being so tempting to the weak and weary? Do we blame the gunsmith for creating the object of temptation? Do we blame the killer's friends for not noticing the killer's descent? Do we blame the victim for being in the same place as a lunatic? Do we blame the bystanders for not stopping it? Do we blame the good Samaritan for not doing more? Is there anyone to blame, in the end? Or are we all stained with the bloodshed we have wrought by everything we've done and everything we haven't, each and every one guilty of all the good we did not do? 

When we look into the mirror and recoil, what shall we blame? Shall we blame the glass for distorting our image? Shall we blame the light for playing tricks? Shall we blame our eyes for being too weak to see a better picture? Shall we blame the mirror for showing us what we do not want to see? Shall we blame Cassandra for her madness, the victims for their exaggerations, the mirror for its lies? 

Chekhov's gun. The simplest explanation is often the correct one. Despite your desperate denial, despite your faulty logic and shoddy reasoning, despite your inability to see the truth laid bare, the face in the mirror is your own. 

* * *

As the water rushes in, Damien closes his eyes and lets himself be swept away by the current, all the while holding tight to Celine's hand. When he next opens his eyes, he is staring out at the world through someone else's eyes. His hand lands on the cane, and he picks it up awkwardly. This body is slightly shorter than his and slightly taller than Celine's, resulting in two conflicting muscle memories trying to move a body that doesn't fit right. The flesh he wears reshapes itself to suit his needs. A form more like his own, instead of the corpse of the DA. The end result doesn't look like him, not really. It looks a lot like Mark, if Mark had the twins' facial features.

As reality asserts its dominance, he feels a presence leave the corpse they inhabit. When he looks up at the mirror, his old friend and coworker, the District Attorney, stares back at him, their face twisted in betrayal and heartbreak. Ordinarily, Damien would feel unspeakably guilty for what they've done to them, but with Celine's slumbering consciousness brushing against his own and the Entity wrapped around the two of them like a wet woolen blanket, he can't muster the emotion necessary to display remorse. There is only a faint flickering contempt from Celine, and even that is so weak as to be negligible. 

He stares at the cane that had belonged to him moments and eons ago before the cabin in the woods and tries to force his shattered bones into the right places. As he cracks his neck, the mirror shatters, distorting the image of the person who was once a dear friend but is now less than nothing to him. The person in the mirror is not a priority, will never be a priority while Mark still walks the earth. He squares his shoulders, straightens his suit, and stares into the mirror. His friend, his victim, his tool stares back. After one last look and a parting sneer, he walks away.

(In a small corner of their shared mind, he, Damien proper and not the one in control of the body, is walking through the wreckage of a cabin. He tucks Celine in, pulling the covers up to her chin, and watches the snow melt. Spring has come, and it is beautiful. 

"Oh, there you are, Damien!" Warfstache says from behind him. "I've been looking all over for you."

"Hello, Wil," he replies, and something _hurts_ in his soul to call him that, to know that Colonel William J. Barnum is well and truly dead.

"You haven't seen Celine around anywhere, have you?" Wil asks, glancing about nervously. "If I could avoid her, I'd rather do that."

"She's sleeping," he replies, his voice echoing slightly as he lets himself relax. 

"Oh good, oh good, great!" Wil exclaims, perking up instantly. "I'm glad I found you. I've got this great new idea. We're going to make a TV show!" He does jazz hands and grins manically.

Damien stares at Wilford for a long time, resisting the urge to sigh or roll his eyes. Of course Wil finally found him after decades/moments/eternities just to pitch a new idea. "Okay," he says, and Wil's grin somehow grows even wider. What has he gotten himself into?)

**Author's Note:**

> Please note, creators can and will be wrong. My interpretation of the House/Entity is drastically different from Mark's rendition. Nearly everything else is the same.


End file.
